"The Pathology Laboratory was lined with white tiles and had a fine marble floor. It overlooked Pemberton's Parlour on the City walls - a favourite spot for courting couples which added a bit of spice to our working life!
The staff were Dr Grace (or "Doc" as he was known to everyone), Mr Bill Pritchard, Head Technician and the lab assistants, Mrs Pownall and Miss Randalls, the other secretary and me. The lab also had a domestic who washed and sluiced all the equipment and specimen containers after the examinations - nothing was disposable in those days.
The Outfitting Room was where all the different tubes, syringes for blood tests, and fractional test meals were kept. These were sent to GPs on request. We had no transport so when the samples needed to be returned from outlying areas we arranged for them to be sent on the local buses and trains and the porters would meet them.
Next to the Laundry was the animal room which housed the guinea-pigs used in the tuberculin testing of milk, and rabbits used for pregnancy testing. The animals were well looked after but I learnt to stay well away from the lab on the days they were killed. This was very quick - Bill knocked their skulls on the stone slabs - but I really didn't like that noise.
For pregnancy testing, they had to be guaranteed female virgin rabbits and they were sent up from Cornwall in big cages by a special dealer. If a woman thought she may be pregnant, the rabbit was injected with her urine. After a few weeks it was killed and opened up. Bill Pritchard would see if the ovaries had brown spots which meant the result was positive. One day Bill asked to see Doc - he had a problem with one of the rabbits - he couldn't find its ovaries. Dr Grace took one look and told him it didn't have ovaries because the rabbit was a male - and added that Bill would have to get rid of the complete batch as, after the trip from Cornwall, they would no longer be guaranteed virgin rabbits!
As Home Office pathologist, Dr Grace was in great demand by the police - he was called out for murder cases, and even after raids on homosexual clubs to test clothing etc.
I loved my job - it was so interesting and quite spoilt me for any other
work."